The Presentation of Ned Kelly in Peter Carey’s Novel True History of the Kelly Gang and the film Ned Kelly
1.Introduction
The focus of this paper is to explore the presentation of the character of Ned Kelly in Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang, then juxtapose the figure of Ned Kelly as presented in the novel with the presentation of him in the 2003 movie Ned Kelly in order to discover the ways in which Carey reconstructs the character and see whether the presentation aligns and how that contributes to the image of the historical figure of Ned Kelly. This research was fueled by the controversial and polarizing nature of Ned Kelly in the Australian realm.
To achieve this contrast, I will try to create a framework by providing a necessary context of the expansion of the British Empire in Ireland, to other lands across the Atlantic and later Australia. Next, I will lay out basic information about the Irish people — Ned Kelly was of Irish origin — in Australia, which will be accompanied by a socio-political context in order establish an understanding of the milieu in which Ned Kelly lived. Additionally, a brief mention of the development of the literature tradition in Australia is of outmost importance to understand why True History of the Kelly Gang was produced.
After creating a framework that would enable an easier comprehension of the issue at hand, I will present numerous detailed character features of Ned Kelly that chisel him into a well-rounded character and transform him into a human being with anti-heroic qualities. I will also point out the devices which aid Carey to a successful application of them.
Next, I will contrast and compare the presentation of the same features in the 2003 movie Ned Kelly to determine whether the reconstruction of Ned Kelly in Carey’s novel comes in clash with the character in the movie and how it contributes to the overall historical figure of Kelly with a focus on the mediums of storytelling.
2. Building an Empire
2.1 The First Colony — Ireland
The never-ending search for power by the British Empire started in the 15th century and it was accompanied by the era of colonialism. The kick-off of the colonialist epoch began with what Chomsky (2008) calls “the salt-water fallacy” implying “that you have an empire if you cross salt-water” and so they did. The British colonized the neighboring island of Ireland.
To say that the British were welcomed with open arms would be an overstatement. Rather, just the opposite, their overtaking of Ireland was frowned upon as the magnitude of the future-changing power of the British was too strong. And in no time, the island of Ireland morphed into a society governed by the Crown.
The colonization of Ireland — to get rid of euphemisms — spread to all spheres of life in the Irish society. Two society and culture building blocks which the British used to their advantage were religion and language. As colonization is not merely about taking physical control over the land and its peoples, the British wanted to exert dominance and relay the foundations of Ireland. They achieved this effect systematically and gradually through the imposition of their religion. Ireland, therefore, saw a deluge of British Protestant settlers. The religion, naturally, came hand in hand with the language, which the settlers spoke — English. A complete immersion by the British in Ireland was underway and the countless rebellions, unfortunately, could do nothing to prevent it.
The colonization of Ireland meant an endless exercise of oppression through cataclysmic tools — religion and language — that were to shift the future and the core of the Irish nation as well as turn the citizens of the island into disenfranchised citizens with less value than their colonizers.
2.2 The British Empire Overseas
The quest for power did not stop with the conquering of Ireland; it was only a part of the genesis of the soon-to-be-largest Empire in the world. To continue their expansion, the British followed suit after the Spanish reached the land of America and sent their own explorers and expeditions across the Atlantic. After reaching the new continent and discovering the opportunities that it offered, the expeditions set up trading outposts. To gain complete dominance over the new promised land, the Crown steadily populated America with their own citizens from Britain. Only to then form the first European colony overseas in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia.
Besides the atrocities committed against the indigenous population of America, the British committed crimes against the Irish as well. Thus, to speed up the population process and to easily do away with what could be a potential problem in the future, they sent Irish convicts to America as they were considered undesired and dangerous citizens in Britain.
The establishment of the first European colony was in 1607. The Crown’s appetite for the discovery of new territories and further expansion brought Captain James Cook into the picture. After roaming around in foreign and unknown waters with his crew, Cook came across Terra Australis, or what we nowadays refer to as Australia. And thus began the period of Colonial Australia.
With the British colonization of Australia, in came an influx of British citizens, who brought with them culture, oppression and most importantly to this paper, convicts. The approach for populating another new land the British discovered shares identical similarities to that of America. In fact, Australia was built on the back of convicted citizens of Britain who were transported from England, Ireland or Scotland to Australia in order to serve their sentence. The sentenced were sent to Australia based on petty crimes like stealing bread. This time around, nonetheless, the British executed their blueprint on a bigger scale. The populating of Australia was of such enormous magnitude that “in the late 19th century about a third of the population in Australia was Irish” claims Alison Rourke (2013). What’s more, “according to the most recent census, 10% of Australians now claim Irish ancestry” adds Rourke (2013), which proves the imprint they left on Australia and the significance in the nation’s development.
2.3 The Irish in Australia
Initially and as previously mentioned, the main reason for the rapid populating of Australia with Irish people was the involuntary transportation of convicts from Ireland to Australia. That is why Australia acquired the name of a “penal colony.” Though a very big number of the Irish population consisted of convicts, the majority of Irish people sought refuge in Australia as a consequence of the Potato Famine and the poor living conditions in their home country. There were also numerous programs financed by the Crown to encourage a sped-up populating of the land. If an Irish citizen were to move, then their journey would be paid for. Additionally, they would also be given their own land. The offer paired up with the desire for a better life, allured the Irish to relocate in such big numbers to a completely new and foreign land, Australia.
“About the Irish in Australia there are always opinions, some favourable, some not” writes Richard Reid, the senior curator at the National Museum of Australia. The Irish have been historically disenfranchised as a direct consequence of the colonization of the island of Ireland by the British in the 15th century. The injustices that the Irish suffered back home did not cease when they reached Australia. “[…] A long history of police persecution and harassment of the Irish existed in the Australian colonies,” writes O’Reilly (2007). The change of setting and distancing themselves from the center of the Empire did not imply a lessening of their oppression. The British remained the dominant and oppressing power and the Irish the oppressed. There was no reversal of roles between the two; they stayed the same.
2.4 Australian Literature and Society
Australian literature tradition as a member of the club of post-colonial literatures, which consists of nations like Canada, is considered to be new. However, this claim proves to be a relativization and a generalization applied through a Eurocentric lens. It is true: Australia cannot boast with their own equivalent of Boccaccio’s The Decameron or Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. There are two reasons that lead to this outcome — Australia was not colonized by the Europeans until the late 18th century, which means that there was a lack of European influence. And since Australia had been populated by an indigenous population prior to the arrival of the Europeans, artistic expression was realized through different mediums such as paintings or wood carvings. It needs to be clear: the medium of artistic expression might have been different, but the indigenous population of Australia still conveyed narratives.
The arrival of the colonizers, as a result, marks the genesis of Australian literature. Though the early literature may be christened as Australian, it is not. “Perhaps the question shouldn’t be asked; it is not capable of a plain answer. I do not personally dispute the right of a book like this to be called Australian” writes Elliot (1963). He is speaking of Henry Savery’s earliest efforts — Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded upon Incidents of Real Occurrence. It is a book that is claimed to be the first Australian novel. If we indeed label it as Australian because of “this third volume [which] is the only one worth reading” as it is “the section which is set mainly in Australia,” then it is a case of mislabeling. The reason is straightforward — Savery’s effort to produce an Australian text is a reflection of the colonizer’s viewpoint which is a feature common of the majority of literature to be produced in Australia in the 19th century. That is, of course, a result of the lack of Australian identity.
The formation of an Australian identity moved at a glacial pace as a consequence of the strong British and simultaneously European influence. It was, therefore, impossible for Australian literature to establish a base. The first notable efforts came from authors like Miles Franklin with her novel My Brilliant Career, which was published in 1901 — almost a century after the arrival of Europeans. Her book may be criticized for the presentation of the life of Europeans residing in the Australian outback, yet it serves as an important turning point and a work that paved the way for Australian authors to establish a national literature proper.
Tuesday June 20 was a red-letter day in Australian history. It was the day on which the people of New South Wales — the best and wealthiest of the Australian Colonies — had to decide whether they were willing to accept the Federation Bill … A very large vote was recorded all over the colony, and a majority of … electors decided that Federation under the Bill was desirable. Enormous crowds thronged the Sydney streets on Tuesday evening to get the earliest news of the voting, and as the returns came in there was loud and long continued cheering.
That is an excerpt from The Children’s Magazine in 1899 and describes the events before the Constitution of Australia was officialized. However, the year 1901 can be seen as a watershed in the history of the Australian nation because with the Constitution of Australia becoming official, so did the identity. This milestone shifts the nation’s identity from a very abstract idea to a concrete one. Once the idea of an Australian identity was written in stone, it became a permanent and absolute entity which needed to be established and further explored to see what constitutes it.
“This identity comes through the way we think about ourselves and our nation: the stories we tell, the songs we sing, our legends and our myths,” claims Donovan (2010). One of the building blocks for a culture and identity is literature. The rise of Australian nationalism in the late 19th century and the early 20th century propagated and relied heavily on the application of literature to the cause of culture creation. Steadily, this was realized, and Australia was cemented as an independent nation with Patrick White’s Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. The issue, however, is that White’s achievement does not eliminate the history of Australia and the ever-present need and search for national identity through literature. Thus, this need gave way to the contemporary author Peter Carey with his novel True History of the Kelly Gang to make his contribution to the vast array of Australian books and reconstruct the infamous Australian historical figure Ned Kelly.
3. True History of the Kelly Gang
3.1 What is it about?
When asked what True History of the Kelly Gang is about in a 2001 interview for the Guardian, Carey (2001) answered
Ned Kelly was the eldest child of an Irish convict father and a mother whose own family was always wild and sometimes criminal. When Ned’s father died, his mother selected a farm under a Lands Act which did for the Kellys what it did for most poor farmers — kept them in continually desperate circumstances. Given the boy’s poverty and family connections, it is not surprising that he was first jailed at the age of 15 nor that he soon became the apprentice of a famous bushranger.
Therefore, it can be said that the novel tells the narrative of the infamous Australian — or is it Irish — bushranger Ned Kelly from early childhood up until his death. It is an epistolary novel in which Kelly writes letters to a fictional daughter of his in order to set the record straight. “You are too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.” With this exclamation, he vows to his daughter to give her an explanation of his life as he believes it has been misconstrued.
Organized in a series of letters, each one of which portrays Kelly’s interpretation of happenings that took place during his life at different ages. The novel sets off by Ned Kelly giving an account of his father’s (John Kelly’s) arrival to Australia, the reasoning behind it, how he ends up getting engaged to Ellen Kelly and starts a home in Avenel, a rural area near Melbourne. Having come to Australia as a criminal from Ireland, Ned’s father is afraid of the law force, and tries avoiding it. Nonetheless, it eventually catches up with him when he gets imprisoned again. Not long after his imprisonment, he dies.
Following his death, the Kellys relocate to another piece of land that Ellen Kelly acquires through the Land Grand Act. Trying to establish a life for her family, she sleeps with bushrangers like Harry Power.
Power’s arrival in Ned’s life is of outmost importance as he would change his life. Ellen makes Power take Ned under his wing as she cannot provide for him anymore. After their numerous adventures together, Ned and Kelly split up following a heated exchange between the two. Then, Ned goes back home.
Ned’s first clash with the police has him imprisoned under the pretext of a stolen horse. The charges are later dropped, and he is allowed to go home. After having a peaceful period, Ned is challenged again when a bunch of horses are taken by another squatter. However, the ultimate event which pushes him back into the world of bushranging is the altercation and argument he has with Constable Alex Fitzpatrick. Though he claims that he would not do anything about it, Fitzpatrick issues a warrant for Ned and Dan Kelly, his brother.
Ned and Dan run away and hide in the bush, where they enlarge their group with their friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart. In the meantime their mother is imprisoned as an attempt to bring Ned in. A unit of four men is sent by the police in the bush to kill Ned and his company. Their attempt is unsuccessful as they find themselves cornered by Ned’s company and Ned kills three of them.
To cut things short, Ned and his company find themselves in Glenrowan. In this small town, they have hostages under their control and make armor from steel plates to defend themselves. Thomas Curnow, one of the hostages, makes Kelly write his story and sneaks away and tells the police that Kell and his company destroyed the train tracks. Following this issue, they are cornered by the police force and start shooting at each other. At this point, another narrator takes over the story. Considering the fact that Curnrow runs away, we believe the remainder of story is narrated by someone close to Curnrow.
3.2 The True in True History of the Kelly Gang
Titled True History of the Kelly Gang, the novel written by Peter Carey is the furthest thing from true. It does not offer a real historical account, but a fictional account of history. Carey (2015) claims that “it’s the most invented, made up book I’ve ever written.” By choosing this method of history-telling and attaching the adjective “true” to the title of the novel, he bends the perception of reality and creates a distinct spin on the life of Ned Kelly. To claim that it is wholly devoid of historical facts would also be a misconception. At the opening of the book, the first-person narrator of the story Ned Kelly pronounces “I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter.” This utterance serves as a perfect instance to illustrate the play on facts in which Carey engages. It is, for example, a historical fact that Ned Kelly’s dad had passed away, which he mentions in the famous Jerilderie Letter “I am a Widow’s Son [sic], outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.” Nonetheless, by getting hanged at the age of 25, Ned Kelly never conceived a daughter. Therefore, the narrator addresses a fictional daughter, and not a character based on a real person or a fact.
“This idea of writing your own truth and the only thing that is true is what you stand by, then you can stand by anything” says George Mackay (2019), an English actor who plays Ned Kelly in the 2019 movie adaptation of the novel. This, as a matter of fact, is what Carey achieves with True History of the Kelly Gang. He offers an alternative version of history by laying groundwork facts to frame the narrative, only to then interweave those with threads of alternate truth and set of events. This tactic enables the figure and myth of Ned Kelly to take matters into his own hands and repaint the pre-conceived notions about him, and also offer his own perspective of history.
3.3 The Voice and Language of Ned Kelly
The Jerilderie Letter is a message that Kelly put in writing to explain the reasoning behind his actions to the British authorities. It is ascribed the qualities of a “manifesto” by the Australian National museum. They also crown Kelly as “the only bushranger known to have left a detailed written justification of his actions.” This letter serves as the basic substance for the creation of the character of Kelly. So much so that Carey (2001) says “[…] it was Kelly’s language that drew me to this story” to which he adds “in those eccentric sentences was my character’s DNA.” Thus, to make the voice of the character plausible and believable, Carey applies the vernacular voice of Kelly from the Jerilderie Letter to that of the character. This does not mean that he “attempt[s] to parody Kelly’s style,” but his goal is to retain the original identity along with the Irishness of Kelly.
Historically speaking, the connotations attached to the term Irishness characterized the Irish people both in Ireland and Down Under with unfavorable qualities. Richard Twopeny, a journalist who lived in the 19th century, found that “four out of five servants were Irish” in Australia and that people saw them as “liars and dirty.” Carey, therefore, seizes the opportunity to reinvent the term Irishness and he does it through the voice of Ned Kelly, who was of Irish origin. Instead of opting out for his voice to be in Standard English, he employs the vernacular. Without hesitation and right off the bat Kelly tells his daughter
God willing I shall live to see you read these words to witness your astonishment and see your dark eyes widen and your jaw drop when you finally comprehend the injustice we poor Irish suffered in this present age. How queer and foreign it must seem to you and all the coarse words and cruelty which I now relate are far away in ancient time.
This cry at the beginning of the novel is a proof of Kelly’s — and perhaps Carey’s — mission to reclaim Irishness and to create new associations with it and put the Irish on the same pedestal as the British.
“The other attractive thing about As I Lay Dying was the way it gave rich voices to the poor” states Carey in his 2001 interview with the Guardian.
Seeking to channel his inspiration and apply it to practice, Carey puts to use a strategy of Faulkner’s. That is, to give a voice and an opportunity for the disenfranchised, those living on the margins of society to express themselves. Carey (2001) admits this explicitly by claiming that when he finished the novel, he came to the realization “that Faulkner had not lost his power over me” after claiming that Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying “had an immense influence on me [him], and most of my novels bear the burn marks of this experience.” It is not, consequently, a coincidence that the book’s epigraph is a Faulkner quote, “The past is not dead, it is not even past.”
To succeed in this quest, i.e. to enable the character to express himself in an authentic voice, Carey gets rids of punctuation or reduces it to a minimum to capture the essence of Kelly’s voice from the Jerilderie Letter. Even though this decision obstructs the natural flow of information processing at times, Kelly is given his own, unique tongue which does not symbolize the language of the oppressor — the British — but is rather emblematic of the oppressed — the Irish.
Besides the usage of punctuation to give voice to Ned Kelly who stands as a symbol for the oppressed, Carey makes use of grammar which traditionally and prescriptively would characterize Ned Kelly as uneducated. It ultimately serves as a rebellion against the prescribed standard by the oppressors, however. “Your Aunt Maggie were a baby so my mother wrapped her also then she carried both cake and baby out into the rain.” In this case, by exchanging “were” with “was” and intentionally omitting the definite article, Carey achieves the desired effect. Not only does he give a successful twist on what it meant to be Irish in 19th century Australia, but he also puts the uneducated and the marginalized in the forefront and lets them shine.
3.4 Deglorification of Ned Kelly
It would be extremely hypocritical to proclaim that True History of the Kelly Gang does not glorify the figure of Ned Kelly, as the moment the book is sent out into the ether, either directly or indirectly, it elevates him to a degree which opens a possibility for Kelly to be worshipped. Despite this by-product, after giving a fair shot to the novel, the opposite becomes evident — Ned Kelly undergoes a process of deglorification throughout the course of the novel.
To deglorify Kelly, the author strips Kelly of socially-fabricated features which focus on his achievements or struggles based on myths whose level of credibility could never be certainly confirmed. An example of these features would be the robberies Kelly performed. Focusing on them to form a perception of him in the society is entirely shallow. Therefore, Carey challenges this view of Kelly through the actions and words of the character.
The starting point of bringing the change to fruition is humanization. By being in the limelight for such a long period in history, Kelly is deprived of human traits. “Now it is many years later I feel great pity for the boy who so readily believed this barefaced lie I stand above him and gaze down like the dead look down from Heaven.” This is what Kelly expresses after recalling the time when he shoots Bill Frost. Then, a day after this event takes place, he says “Soon we passed that solid stone edifice wherein Bill Frost supposedly lay dead I couldn’t help but cross myself I were so ashamed and sorry and I slumped there in the saddle with my eyes cast down upon the mane.” Through these recollections of Kelly’s, Carey manages to depict him as a being capable of having emotions. With his capability to show vulnerability, Kelly moves from a desensitized historical figure to a fully fleshed-out, three-dimensional character.
Carey does not stop there. Among the basic criteria for the classification of a male hero is toxic masculinity. As far as Ned Kelly is concerned, he is no exception. Yet, the author, in order to humanize him, embraces that side of Ned. The masculine side comes to prominence when Ned Kelly is to fight Constable Alex Fitzpatrick. He recalls, “I said I were not a coward and would fight him man to man if that were what he wished.” Making that masculinity-laden proclamation, he places himself within a traditional frame of masculinity.
He knew I were badly shaken by the murder but he never showed me no sympathy only the opposite he were blithe as a sparrow continually mocking the dead man calling him Yes but or Bill Frot [sic] which means to rub your private parts or so he claimed. By the campfire he would perform a very vulgar imitation of Bill’s Waltz for which he thrust his big square backside out into the dark.
Through this recollection, Carey manages to balance out the toxic masculinity that is emblematic of the heroic role of Kelly. The balancing-out and growth is manifested through his acknowledgment of emotions. That is because coming to terms with emotions is not associated with masculinity — just the opposite, it is an anti-heroic feature which does not align with the traditionally heroic role he is expected to play. Furthermore, not only does honestly admitting what he is emotionally experiencing come in opposition with toxic masculinity, but it also unmasks Kelly as an aware being. Thus, he is portrayed as an emotionally intelligent character which conventionally does not fit in the same category with masculinity.
3.5 The Influence of the Milieu
“No reader will be left unmoved by this dramatic tale of an instinctively good-hearted young man whose destiny, in Carey’s revisionist point of view, was determined by heredity on one side and official bigotry and corruption on the other; whose criminal deeds were motivated by gallantry and desperation[…].” This is how Kelly is described in a review of the novel in Publishers Weekly (2001).
Opting out for a format of an epistolary novel as well as ordering the events in chronological order allows Carey to unravel the influence of the milieu in a gradual manner. Portraying his Ned’s journey at such a pace helps him build a detailed background for the character. The by-product, then, creates a causality, which eventually is fleshed-out into a cause-effect relationship. The pieces of the puzzle do not fall into place immediately, rather with the continuous build-up, Carey constructs it piece by piece, until we are given the entire puzzle.
His descent into the bushranging world is not sudden and unexpected. It is hinted at from the early childhood experience in the life of Kelly. “My 1st memory is of Mother breaking eggs into a bowl and crying that Jimmy Quinn my 15 yr. old uncle were arrested by the traps. I don’t know where my daddy were that day nor my older sister Annie. I were 3 yr. old. While my mother cried I scraped the sweet yellow batter onto a spoon and ate it the roof were leaking above the camp oven each drop hissing as it hit.” Having to remember this instance as his first memory leaves a permanent mark on young Ned. Moreover, it exemplifies the inevitability of circumstance that Ned has to come to terms with. Then accordingly, when he becomes a bushranger and comes in contact with the police, we feel pity for the him and we are left with sympathy and understanding for his actions. Ultimately, through this retrospection, he is presented as a product of his environment, which further deglorifies him and shifts his position from a hallow and worshipped hero to a human shaped by the circumstances.
“She told the Englishman she had baked a cake for his prisoner Quinn and would be most obliged to deliver it because her husband were absent and she had butter to churn and pigs to feed” tells Kelly to his daughter. Then, he continues, “I will lay a quid that you have already been told the story of how your grandma won her case in court against Bill Frost and then led wild gallops up and down the main street of Benalla. You will know she were never a coward but on this occasion she understood she must hold her tongue […]” By giving the truth to his daughter about her grandmother, he also foreshadows the intricate relationship he had with his mother. While developing the story, Carey parallelly includes the injustices and struggles Ellen Kelly suffers, which Ned has to witness at an early age. Since this unfairness is usually carried out by the corrupted British authorities, a disdain for them starts seething quietly in Kelly’s psyche. Apart from the police officers that inflict trauma on Ned, the numerous men Ellen has to sleep with, such as Harry Power and Bill Frost, in order to provide for her family evoke the quietly seething anger Kelly feels. “That night I woke to hear my mother crying and Bill Frost talking very low. I spent a lifetime learning not to see or hear what weren’t my business but when Bill Frost called my mother Harry Power’s whore I could not be deaf no more.” Once Kelly is able to fend for himself, he stands up for his mother when he confronts Bill Frost. “I told him my mother had asked me to apologise and he would be wise to give her that impression. For my own part I could only say that if he ever abandoned her I would come and shoot him while he slept.” Since Carey provides a context for Kelly’s aggression, the cause-effect relationship is fulfilled, and Kelly’s actions can be justified as well as ascribed to the impact the surroundings have on his life. Therefore, the doings of Ned can be seen as a survival tool which he employs to put an end to the bullying of his family, and especially to what his mother goes through. Again, with this manoeuvre, Carey gives a dose of humanity to Ned Kelly.
3.6 Overview
With True History of the Kelly Gang, Carey toys with history and blends the subjective with the objective. In other words, he infuses the objective historical facts with subjectivity. Furthermore, he gives a voice to a hero that society has made mute, as those characteristics come with the territory of a traditional hero and also adds a new value to the term Irishness. He, then, removes the glory attached Kelly, humanizes him and turns him into a well-rounded character. And finally exposes the influence the milieu has on Kelly; therefore, portrays him as a product of his circumstances and environment.
4. The movie Ned Kelly vs. True History of the Kelly Gang
The 2003 movie Ned Kelly attempts to fictionalize the story of Ned Kelly and present it through the medium of film. The scenario of the movie is not based on Carey’s novel, but on Robert Drewe’s novel about Ned Kelly named Our Sunshine. However, this should not pose a problem in the juxtaposition of True History of the Kelly Gang and the movie Ned Kelly since they follow the official historical frame regarding the life of the protagonist. Yet, their presentation of them as well as the presentation of characters involved differs.
4.1 Advantages and Constraints of Film and Writing
An issue that needs to be addressed before delving deeper into the juxtaposition between the novel and the movie is the comparison of a narrative that is told through different mediums, namely film and writing. As with every medium of expression, both of them have their own advantages and constraints.
The advantage of writing lies in the ability to express things in the most minute detail. And even though we can present the same details visually, we cannot capture the emphasis placed on the same written details. A symbol and object that is of utmost importance and occurs both in the book and the film is the green sash Ned Kelly is given as a child. In the book, Kelly describes it as “respectable clothes I[he] always wanted” and upon seeing the contents of a package he was given by the Shelton family as a token of gratitude for saving their son, he says, “I looked down at my person and seen not my bare feet my darned pullover my patched pants but a 7 ft. sash. It were peacock green embroidered with gold TO EDWARD KELLY IN GRATITUDE FOR HIS COURAGE FROM THE SHELTON FAMILY.” The same moment is shown only at the end of the movie, which takes away from its background-and-character building power it has in the novel. What’s more, the intense feeling of pride Kelly feels is explicitly depicted. “The Protestants of Avenel had seen the goodness in an Irish boy it were a mighty moment in my early life.” On the other hand, in the movie, the pride is hinted at and does not come to the forefront as it does in the novel.
Besides the possibility to portray things in a detailed manner, writing also has the ability to capture the exact speech of Kelly with all the grammar mistakes, inconsistencies and limited vocabulary. As a result, his speech is brought closer to reality because it is based on the Jerilderie Letter. “There is this original voice — uneducated but intelligent, funny and then angry, and with a line of Irish invective” says Carey (2001). Since Kelly lived in the times before people were able to record sound, his Jerilderie Letter is the closest example of what he might have sounded like. The voice of Kelly in the movie, who is played by Heath Ledger, is only an improvisation of his voice with a contemporary twist, which takes away from the novel’s intention to present Kelly as a voice for the uneducated and poor. Nonetheless, it would be unfair not to point out the advantage film has over writing when presenting the voice of Ned Kelly — his accent. Though Carey preserves the Irishness of Kelly through vocabulary, which may not be as straightforward to the general reader, the film preserves it through sound. And as might be expected, his Irishness in the movie is more obvious and recognizable.
“Unsophisticated readers are liable to believe that Carey’s novel is a real autobiography, printed from a manuscript actually written by Ned Kelly” says Eggert (2007, 120–139).
As previously stated, by inserting “true” in the title of True History of the Kelly Gang, Carey operates within a territory that is between the subjective and objective. He comes to this result by fitting the narrative into the frame of historical facts. Aside from this strategy, he brings into play another one which can acquire integrity only in the medium of writing. To be precise, Carey divides the book into parcels. Each one of these parcels is accompanied by information about their source and their physical appearance. “National Bank letterhead. Almost certainly taken from the Europa Branch of the National Bank in December 1878. There are 45 sheets of medium stock (8” x 10" approx.) with stab holes near the top where at one time they were crudely bound. Heavily soiled.” On top of that, Carey provides a brief summary of the content of each parcel. “Contains accounts of his early relations with police including an accusation of transvestism. Some recollections of the Quinn family and the move to the township of Avenel. A claim that his father was wrongly arrested for the theft of Murray’s heifer. A story explaining the origins of the sash presently held by the Benalla Historical Society. Death of John Kelly.” By presenting himself in such a role, Carey appears only as a gatherer of materials Kelly composed, and not the actual composer. Thus, he creates another illusion, which erases the line between the real and made-up. The movie, on the other hand, does not create an illusion and the viewers are aware that it is a fictionalized story based on true events that they are watching.
4.2 The Differences in Structuring and its Effects
In a close connection to the advantages and constraints of film and writing is the amount of issues and events that can be presented in writing as compared to a visual format. For instance, Carey’s novel spreads over 400 pages depending on the print and the movie Ned Kelly has a runtime of only 110 minutes. This advantage of writing makes it possible for Carey to structure the novel in a different manner compared to the film.
As previously mentioned, True History of the Kelly Gang is told through letters, which makes it an epistolary novel. Perhaps, the only suitable medium to apply this narrative technique would be writing as it lets the author explore topics and characters at length. Although it can be done in film, its execution is likely to be unsuccessful as a result of the amount of time filmmakers have at their disposal. Considering the fact that a page of a movie script equals one minute of film runtime, the script would have to be hundreds of pages, which would result in hundreds of minutes of film. Naturally, the structuring of the novel is different as well as the information that it provides. The novel, as we already know, follows the life of Ned Kelly from his early childhood until the age of 25, when he was hanged. All the events are presented through letters Kelly writes to his daughter. The movie, however, starts with his heroic act of saving the boy from the Shelton family, then moves to his first capture by the authorities and it picks up after he is released from jail. As a result, a huge chunk of Kelly’s life which contributes to the debunking of the myth of a hero and reconstructing it is left out. To be more exact, the humanization of Kelly, which is the most basic device Carey applies to achieve the debunking of Kelly is omitted. Take for example the comprehensive accounts of Ned Kelly’s adventures with the bushranger Harry Power. In the novel, they are the basis for Kelly’s gradual descent into the bushranging world. They also reveal that Kelly was taken advantage of by Power. “When we both had muck all across our skin he ordered me to give the horses a good feed of oats then to bring some water from the well. I were a rabbit in his snare but did not know it yet.” Until his later epiphany: “You dirty liar I cried I were beside myself I were never so deceived or cheated in all my livelong days you dirty effing liar I did not care what I said to him.” Then Kelly also recalls, “But Harry Power could not afford having a boy speak to him thus he therefore pulled his Colt .31 revolver from his belt and pressed it to my head above the ear.” Not only does this offer reasoning for Kelly becoming a bushranger, but it also shows the complex relationship Kelly and Power had, which is intertwined with excessive hubris and toxic masculinity. Thus, Kelly’s sudden outbursts of anger can be ascribed to the relationship he has with Harry Power, as contrasted to the film where Kelly throws only one fit full of masculine pride where there is no logical causality. The rage in the film becomes another factor in the contribution to the already-established and socially-fabricated perception of Ned Kelly. Instead of reconstructing the already established like Carey does in True History of the Kelly Gang, the movie does little-to-nothing and he stays the shallow and angry hero.
Another advantage that structuring the novel in letters has over film is the narration of the story. In both the film and the book, Kelly speaks in the first person. In the book, he addresses his imaginary daughter. “God willing I shall live to see you read these words to witness your astonishment […].” And in the film, it is the technique of narration over screen that is employed. By addressing his daughter in the novel, Carey adds another dimension to the character which makes him more human and relatable. And the movie, by having a simplistic voice-over, which is a feature of Terrence Malick films, creates a bland and impersonal atmosphere which takes away from the relatability the book manages to create.
4.3 Overview
First and foremost, the film and book differ as a result of the usage of different mediums to tell the story of Ned Kelly. Initially, the difference comes to prominence through the Ned’s green sash whose use and purpose is described in detail in the novel, as opposed to the feature film, where its function is mentioned at the end. Furthermore, the opportunity to present the uneducated and poor through Ned Kelly’s voice is lost in the movie, as the grammar, which imitates the Jerilderie Letter, cannot be kept. Though the film, as it includes sound, illustrates Irishness better. Also, Carey steps into the shoes of a gatherer, instead of a composer with the structuring of the stories into parcels and by offering additional information on the physical appearance on them, which mislead the readers into believing that it’s something Ned Kelly wrote.
Finally, the differences in structuring of the novel are closely tied to the mediums of film and writing. As the novel is told through the narrative technique of letter writing, Carey can write at length about the characters and provide background, which is missing in the movie. The background that Carey offers, of course, is crucial to the debunking of Kelly’s traditional perception in society.
5. Conclusion
After closely observing the novel True History of the Kelly Gang written by Peter Carey and the 2003 film Ned Kelly, we can conclude that the presentation of the narrative of Ned Kelly through different mediums, such as film and writing, proves to have its benefits and drawbacks. Unfortunately, the strengths of the medium of writing outweigh those of the medium of film. And as a result of this unbalanced relationship, the primary purpose of the novel, which is to reconstruct and debunk the character of Ned Kelly, is not achieved in the movie. It may appear unjust to attach functions to each medium that they can respectively perform better than the other; however, if we also decide to dismiss the above-made claims, namely that Carey has better chances at presenting the story as he operates with a written medium, then we can claim that the poor presentation of the narrative as well as Ned Kelly is due to the poor execution of the vision on the side of the director Gregor Jordan and the crew.
6. Sources
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